At the End
by avanti90
Summary: The death of an Emperor approaches.


The doctor comes every hour, the only visitor I receive now. I see him through fading eyes, a tall white shape bustling around my bedside, examining his machines, adjusting the endless web of tubes and needles that keep me hanging on to life. This time he spends longer over his machines than usual; he desperately tries new needles and tubes and potions; I feel nothing.

_Give up, boy_, I think as he grows more frantic. _It's time._

He seems to come to the same conclusion. He leaves the room in a hurry to perform his final duty, leaving me alone.

Not alone; they are here. Their shadowy figures throng the shadows at the edges of my shrinking view. I can make out old Yuri in their midst, grinning wildly at me as if to say, your turn, boy. In the sky outside the window I can make out ships, hundreds of them, each one home to a thousand men, each one locked in its own ghastly dance of death. Real, or imaginary? I can no longer be sure.

And I see you, of course, always you. You have not left my side for months now.

You stand before me, so clear, so vividly alive, while the rest of the world fades slowly around you. You smile at me so mockingly, that familiar twisted smile.

I welcome you with open arms, as always.

I remember holding you in my arms, all those years ago. I remember that first moment when you stopped wailing and looked up at me through twinkling eyes so like your mother's, in a face so like mine. I loved you from the moment you were born, and from the moment you were born I gave you everything that you wished for. I gave you too much, and by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late.

I remember looking into your eyes, after what I thought was just another Cetagandan assassination attempt, and seeing my own death reflected there. I remember letting it go, like so many other things. No matter what you did, I could never be angry with you, not even at the end.

The doors open; the doctor has done his job. Men file into the room one by one slowly, silently. They stand now in solemn ranks beside my bed, keeping a respectful distance, like carrion crows waiting for the moment to pounce.

My eyes are closing slowly, and I must struggle to see your son standing in front between his mother and his regent-to-be, his eyes wide and bewildered. _Only a few moments more, boy, and they'll all be kneeling before you to swear eternal loyalty. Don't take them too seriously._

I try to open my mouth, to speak to the boy, but my dry lips will not move, and I cannot lift my hand to call him. Better this way; better not to burden him with such a memory. He turns to me, and I see a flash of those eyes – your eyes, and fear grips my heart. No, no. Not that. Let him not become like his father. Let him not become like his grandfather, a traitor who betrays his oaths, a murderer who deals out death by the thousands and millions, a man who dies all alone in a crowded room.

You stand there at the foot of my bed and smile in mocking silence, twisting the fear further. You were always good at that, I know.

"Your time is coming, father," you whisper, drawing closer to me. Your voice is clearer than any sound I have heard in days, so familiar, so sweet, and so deadly. "You cannot escape us much longer, old man."

The boy is frightened now, his eyes darting restlessly around the crowded room. Aral's hand rests lightly on his shoulder. May they not repeat my mistakes…

More men gather at the back of the room, and I wonder where they were all these days while I lay dying. Who will mourn my death? Not Kareen, the first of my human sacrifices. Not Aral, no, certainly not Aral. Not the people who lost their sons in my war. They will cover the city in black and build a pyre twice the size of yours, and they will not mourn.

I wept for you. Would you have grieved for me, had things been different?

You do not answer. You wait with more patience than you ever had in life, turning a knife over and over again in your hands, and I pray that you are no more than my dying imagination. Let there be no afterlife, let there be no judgement, let me be free of my ghosts. Let me not face them, for Yuri's death would be a mercy before the justice they would prepare for me.

Either way, I will know soon. There is nothing left now but to wait patiently for the end. I close my eyes, and the shadows draw closer about me…

Oh, my son!


End file.
